Trouble logging in?If you can't remember your password or are having trouble logging in, you will have to reset your password. If you have trouble resetting your password (for example, if you lost access to the original email address), please do not start posting with a new account, as this is against the forum rules. If you create a temporary account, please contact us right away via Forum Support, and send us any information you can about your original account, such as the account name and any email address that may have been associated with it.

One thing I would like to mention, although many people probably already have, is that Ichigo is one of the weakest main characters, that I know. He is just too passive. All his actions are in fact reactionary measures that are more or less dictated by his enemies. There is no overall goal and no inherent conflict that needs to be overcome. But those are elemental parts of a good story. A good story is driven by a central conflict, caused by a protagonist's goal and inevitable opposing forces. Well, it certainly does not have to be that way, necessarily. I'm not saying that a story needs to follow a specific scheme, but there's a reason why so many good movies, comics and games do.

it's true that ichigo is passive, reactionary and without a clear consistent goal, but that is not rare in protagonists at all. it might be 50/50 or more actually. just think about any action/scifi/fantasy protagonists, they are almost all reactionary to the villains' or others' actions: sarah conner, john maclean, marty mcfly, neo, luke skywalker, frodo and bilbo, etc... those characters are all great protagonists and lead interesting stories, but they have no clear goal from the start like becoming hokage or the pirate king. they are ordinary passive people thrust into unusual scenarios by others and beyond their control

What you have to realize is that there is a difference between being reactionary to the point of formulating a goal or simply reactionary to the point of prevending harm from being done. What I mean is that, yes, Luke Skywalker's goal essentially was born from reactionary behaviour, but it went further than that and in turn forced the opposing forces to react to his actions. He took the lead and took things into his own hands. After joining the rebels, he set his mind on destroying the death star. The imperial forces were then the ones forced to react to the hero's heroic deed. With Ichigo, we don't have that. We just have a villain threatening peace and Ichigo stepping up and defeating him, because essentially there's no other choice for him. Luke and the rebels had different choices. They could have gone straight for Vader or the emperor, theoretically. They could have tried to intercept them on one of their flights. Instead they formulated a different plan and decided to destroy the death star, which in and of itself is not simply a reactionary measure born from Luke losing his parents. There is a transition from a passive farmer boy to the hero who takes things into his own hands. Even more so with the second movie. And I think it was the makers' intention to clearly have this transformation of a seemingly random guy living up to his true inner potential.

Of course you are correct when you say that there are many good protagonists who probably don't follow this scheme. It more or less is true for Neo, but to be honest, I don't think Neo is a good main character for that matter. I have not watched Terminator or Back to the Future and have no idea who John Maclean even is, but I'm sure it worked for other movies. It's just the vast majoritiy of entertainment products I know, follow this idea of an active hero, with an inherent goal and opposing forces to it, resulting in a conflict. With Bleach, it's the other way around. There's no conflict because antagonistic forces threaten his goal, there's a conflict because he has to stop the antagonists from achieving their goal. And once again, I'm not saiying that something like this can't work out great, but it didn't for Bleach, and if might have it Kubo had structured it differently from the beginning. At least during the soul society arc, there was a bit more going on, because he wanted to rescue Rukia and not necessarily defeat the shinigamis. But we all kind of feel like that the series has gone downhill from then on. And well, one of the reasons for this, I think I formulated sufficiently now.

What went wrong in Bleach? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh boy. This is going to take awhile:

Let's start with what was a fun adventure back in the SS arc: teenage kid gets powers by accident thru a girl...who turns out to be a shinigami. Girl gets in trouble, kid feels bad and gets a small group of other kids who are like him: Big Brother type who looks like he'll kick your ass, token fanservice with T & A and the hot nerd who's a frenemy/rival. Everyone fights, including the shinigami as we meet them all and Ichigo prevails in the end.

Flash forward to years later:

Aizen is a total Villian Stu, but I'd rather have him come back because something tells me that Bach is even going to become more of a Villian Stu than Aizen.

Kubo isn't as bad as Kishi with the females, but Jesus Christ......he's basically destroyed Rukia and just turned her into nothing but fodder since she got promoted. Orihime keeps getting hinted as having something special but nothing has come across other than 'LOL SHE CAN HEAL PEOPLE'. Kubo should've seriously killed her and Chad off to Opie or just keep them sidelined because they can not survive this. No way.

We know that Soifon, Isane and Nanao all survived the massacre; what about the other ladygami? Is Matsumoto okay? What about Nemu? More importantly, what the fuck happened to Yoruichi? Did Aizen really kill her off?

Kubo should've just killed off Rukia as well. Yes, she's the female MC, but it also would've given Ichigo a real reason to want to get powerful and let's face it, she don't do shit anymore.

Too many damn characters. Kubo should just kill the ones that he's obviously done with like the nakama, most of the VCs and vizards and just keep it to Ichigo and the fanbaits.

What went wrong in Bleach? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh boy. This is going to take awhile:

Let's start with what was a fun adventure back in the SS arc: teenage kid gets powers by accident thru a girl...who turns out to be a shinigami. Girl gets in trouble, kid feels bad and gets a small group of other kids who are like him: Big Brother type who looks like he'll kick your ass, token fanservice with T & A and the hot nerd who's a frenemy/rival. Everyone fights, including the shinigami as we meet them all and Ichigo prevails in the end.

Flash forward to years later:

Aizen is a total Villian Stu, but I'd rather have him come back because something tells me that Bach is even going to become more of a Villian Stu than Aizen.

Kubo isn't as bad as Kishi with the females, but Jesus Christ......he's basically destroyed Rukia and just turned her into nothing but fodder since she got promoted. Orihime keeps getting hinted as having something special but nothing has come across other than 'LOL SHE CAN HEAL PEOPLE'. Kubo should've seriously killed her and Chad off to Opie or just keep them sidelined because they can not survive this. No way.

We know that Soifon, Isane and Nanao all survived the massacre; what about the other ladygami? Is Matsumoto okay? What about Nemu? More importantly, what the fuck happened to Yoruichi? Did Aizen really kill her off?

Kubo should've just killed off Rukia as well. Yes, she's the female MC, but it also would've given Ichigo a real reason to want to get powerful and let's face it, she don't do shit anymore.

Too many damn characters. Kubo should just kill the ones that he's obviously done with like the nakama, most of the VCs and vizards and just keep it to Ichigo and the fanbaits.

Mostly Agreed. The first part of the manga was the best part because it seemed to be a formula that worked. It seems like in an effort to fill up most of the plot holes Kubo made even more plot holes.

Not to mention he has too many characters, I know those characters have fans but you don't have to use them all the time. He should have offed some characters or at least stuck with the core cast as that was the formula that worked for the manga.

^I totally agreed with this until i heard he received death threats about killing off certain characters. if that rumor is true, then by all means kubo, keep them alive to save yourself!

I don't care what anyone says:

I sincerely believe that fan reaction is the only reason why Nii-sama is in that hot tub with the one RG right now, along with little sis...who got the least injured out of EVERYONE and yet is near death...instead of being mourned in the SS.

Kubo should just start having fun with killing characters off. He should have a weekly character poll and he can pick from those, who scored lowest, to kill. To go even further, he could determine their death scenes by how many votes they get.
0 votes would be sudden, off screen, non-sympathetic, no last words, and no cries from other characters; just boop dead, move on. Beyond that would be determined by how many vote, like 100 - 1000 (if that many people vote) could be they get the full service, a valiant struggle that ultimately leads to their demise. They die in the arms of their closest, with inspiring last words and all the battles stop as everyone laments their passing and Kubo gives them an "In memory of" drawing in the last panel of the manga.

__________________

So people understand that I do not take these discussions seriously, its all good fun.

So he saved Byakuya but Unohana, the most complex female character he ever wrote (well her past could be an asspull but really makes you think about her), had to die... Just to hype Kenpachi even though he was basically god. Why Kubo?!

So he saved Byakuya but Unohana, the most complex female character he ever wrote (well her past could be an asspull but really makes you think about her), had to die... Just to hype Kenpachi even though he was basically god. Why Kubo?!

I hate defending Kubo, but to be fair, Unohana could be either dead dead or dead as in 'Killing off her past as Kenpachi'.

But if she stays dead then yes...another minus for Kubo for offing one of the few strong female characters in this series and the only one who basically can save everyone no matter what their injuries are.

Because we all know Orihime's a dumbass and Kubo would be bastard enough to bring back Yoruichi just to kill her off.

I dunno, I still think the deaths are of minor characters that, ultimately, no one cares about because they have pretty small fanbases. Feels more like Kubo trimming the fat off of his minor character list rather than aiming for any real drama.

I was about to say "I gotta respect that" when he killed off Byakuya, but then apparently chickened out at the last minute and said "wait, j/k lol, he got miraculously saved". Really? REALLY!?

I mean, Naruto is equally guilty of having terrible plotholes, but at least the author has courage enough to kill characters off without some lame deus ex machina the next chapter to completely reverse it.

If you're going to have someone die, make it a character whose death is actually appropriate. No, I didn't forget about Genryuusai, but honestly... who DIDN'T see his death coming? Again, I'd use Byakuya as an example of a dramatic sacrificial ending, but then Kubo cheapened it by bringing him back to life, essentially. Honestly, the only character whose death I've felt was well done in this series was Gin's.

And he better not bring back Yoruichi just to kill her. I will be seriously pissed. It's bad enough he randomly killed off Unohana in what I'm pretty sure was an asspull backstory plot.

It's bad enough he randomly killed off Unohana in what I'm pretty sure was an asspull backstory plot.

it wasn't an asspull. everyone was always afraid of her and she was the oldest captain next to yama-jii. it was just a horribly written story and over in a couple chapters. but there's really no doubt that she was always intended to be the first kenpachi from the start